The Trickster
by Gallifrey-born
Summary: A man living in New York dies in a car wreck, but then he comes back. He returns home to find his long absent father, and the blue box that he can only vaguely remember. OC 12th Doctor. A few non-canon aspects.
1. Chapter 1

**Summery:** A man living in New York dies in a car wreck, but then he comes back. When he returns home, he finds his long absent father, and a certain time machine that he can only vaguly remember.

**Disclaimer:I do not own Doctor Who and all that copyrighty stuff.**

My name is Loki. I live in New York City, and I work at a shop called 'Tea and Tomes' I am thirty nine years old, but I do not look a day over twenty. My mother is dead, and my father left when I was eleven, not that I remember much about him. I only know that something was strange about him, but no matter how hard I try, I can never remember what it was. I also remember meeting my grandfather, once, I think that was the day that my father left. Something was strange about him to. I draw him, sometimes. He had brilliant green eyes, and wore black rimmed glasses. I can't get those ancient looking eyes out of my head. He had the kind of eyes that bored into you, like he was looking into your mind. I remember that. I remember that very well.

My father used to tell me bedtime stories about him, only I didn't know they were about him at the time. They called him the Doctor, and he was an alien, He traveled in a box that was bigger on the inside. I think I may have been inside it once, on the day my father left, but I can't remember anything about it. Except the humming, that is. The pleasant, cheerfully, low hum. It seemed, almost like the ship was happy to see my father again. He claimed that it was. That the ship loved him. Even then, I didn't believe that. I mean, how could a ship love someone?

When I was a kid, all the adults would say I was making all of it up subconsciously to deal with the fact that my father left. I might have believed them, but it never went away. The feeling that my grandfather was the Doctor that my father used to tell me stories about. An ancient alien with old, wise eyes, piercing green eyes that looked straight through you. The feeling that the ship was real, and those... monsters. The ones that plauged my nightmares for so long after that night. I could never forget them. Sometimes, I still have nightmares about them. Those robotic, terrifying creatures. It seemed they would stop at nothing to kill my grandfather. Daleks, he had called them. I know that it's true. It has to be.

A strange thing happened to me today. I was in a car wreck on my way to work. That wasn't the strange part, of course, I mean, people get into car wrecks all the time. No the strange part was I think I died. I swear. I died. Everything went black as soon as the car was impacted. Then I woke up. The EMTs were already there when I opened my eyes and took a gasp of air. Everyone just stared at me. When I got my barrings I asked what was wrong, they said I had been dead for ten minutes at least. I stood up, stumbling a bit at first, but other than that, I was completely fine. I died, and then I came back to life.

I know, I know, I am crazy. Except I am not. Maybe it is my grandfather's alien blood that made me come back? I had intended to go to work like normal, I felt fine, after all, even if I couldn't stop thinking about it. My boss insisted that I go home and rest, though. So I did. I returned to my apartment, since my car was totaled, I had to get a ride with a friend who was just getting off work as I came in. When I entered my apartment though, there it was. The old police box that looked so familiar. I couldn't place how it looked familiar. When I tore my blue eyes away from the box, I saw a man, sitting in my recliner as if he owned the place, grinning at me. He looked familliar. I swear I had seen... then I realized who it was. "Hello, Loki Harkness." I gaped at him speechlessly. It had been so long since I had seen him. "Dad," my voice was barely audible.

The man, my father who had left all those years ago, stood and approached me. "Hello, Loki" he repeated. I took a step back, eyeing him suspiciously. How did he get in here, and how had he gotten that box in here? And why? That couldn't be the real box, could it? I noticed then that my eyes were watering, tears threatening to fall.  
>"I know you must be a bit confused. You died today, didn't you?" How did he know that?<br>"Then you came back. It is the same reason you look so young. The same reason I look so young. Loki," he grinned more, as if the fact made him very happy, "you are immortal. Immortal like me".

I could only stare at him. I wanted to do something, but I wasn't sure what. Call him crazy and send him away? Demand to know why he left me and my mother? Something. Even if I did know what to do, though, I don't think I could have. I was paralyed by my shock. My father, stood, in front of me, looking my age, and telling me I was an immortal. I thought it was a dream, at first. I had often had dreams similar to this, mostly about the night that he left. This felt different, though. I knew it wasn't a dream, I just wasn't sure if I wanted it to be or not.

"Why are you here?" I managed, regaining control over my body. "After so long... why have you come back now?" I had so many questions, one came out right after another, not giving him time to answer them. "Why can't I remember much about the day you left? Why did you leave?"

Finally he held his hand up to silence me. I stopped talking, realizing I was not giving him time to answer. "What do you remember about when I left?"

"Not much. I remember... the Daleks, and, the ship that was bigger on the inside," I looked at the police box in front of me. "The humming it made. You said it was happy to see you. And I remember the Doctor."

"The Doctor tried to erase your memories. Yours and your mother's. He was weak at the time, though. Injured. The mental blocks he put up were not as strong as they would of been otherwise. That's why you can remember certain things. He must have been weaker than he let on. He's always been stubborn like that, never wanting to show his weakness," he spoke so casually about erasing my memories and abandoning me for more that twenty years. I was interrupted by the ship's doors opening and a man stepping out.

"I am not stubborn" he said defensively. Unlike my father, I recognized this man immediately. He had piercing green eyes. Old eyes that, even now, when he was grinning and kidding, looked wise and weathered, and over them he wore black rimmed glasses. His eyes were what made me remember him. This was the Doctor. I had forgotten how the rest of him looked, only remembering those eyes that had been seemingly burned into my mind. He was shorter than me, about an inch taller than my father, and very skinny. He had long, wavy red hair, in contrast to both mine and my fathers hair, both of us wore our dark hair short, though mine was a bit longer. His clothes. How could I have forgotten his clothes. He wore a black fedora, and a long black coat that came only a few inches of the ground, matching black pants and a white dress shirt, and blue tennis shoes. Bright blue tennis shoes. A rather long green scarf was wrapped twice around his neck, both ends reaching his knees. I hadn't realized that I had been staring at him in awe until he spoke again.

"Ah, hello, Loki. Haven't seen you in a while. Though I imagine it has been longer for us than it has for you," he was smiling as much as my father had been, and I could hear through the open door, the ship making that noise. That humming, the one it had made when I went inside all those years ago, the one that made it sound like it was happy my father was back.

"Hello, Doctor" I managed.

"Ah, you do remember me, then," he seemed pleased with this. "Do you remember my ship?"

I remembered that I was inside the day my father left, but everything else had been blocked. "sort of".

The Doctor stepped out of the door way, making room and gesturing inside, "she remembers you" What was that supposed to mean? It was a ship. How would a ship remember me? "Of course, she is not one to forget. Come in, and I will take down the mental blocks I put up. You'll remember then."

Without giving it a seconds thought, I stepped into the bigger-on-the-inside ship. Then I heard a noise. It was not the humming. It was something different. In my head. It sounded like... singing, in a language that I had never heard before. I looked around, for the source of the noise. Was I imagining it? It seemed so real. "Do you hear that? The singing? I can't understand it, it's in another language or something."

My father and the Doctor, who had both entered the ship, looked surprised. "The language is called Gallifreyan" the Doctor said, "it is the language of my home planet. You shouldn't be able to hear it at all. It means you have a psychic connection with the TARDIS."

TARDIS, so that's what the ship was called.

A/N Wasn't sure where to end this chapter. Please review. I love reviews. They make me write faster.


	2. Chapter 2

"A psychic connection?" I asked, unsure what the Doctor meant by that.

"That's right. I expected you to get one eventually, being my grandson, but I didn't expect you to have one right away. That shouldn't happen." I think that explanation made me even more confused than I had been before. It certainly gave me more questions than I had before. "The TARDIS is sentient," the Doctor continued, "Normally, she does not like my companions very much. I didn't understand why she liked Jack so much at first. She let him fly her, and do repairs, everything. It was because she knew something I didn't. She knew that he was my son. Usually, you don't form a psychic connection with her unless you have been traveling with me for a long time, and she likes you. To have one when you first walk in..."

"I've been here before" I interjected.

"Yes, but for no more than an hour or two, several years ago." True, but I felt like I had been here after that. I just got this feeling, I couldn't remember anything about it but... this place seemed more famillar than it would if I had only been here the day my father left. "Not enough time to form a connection with her," the Doctor continued. "Even I didn't form a connection with her for at least a hundred years."

"Took longer with me. Maybe she knows something we don't, again" my father suggested.

The Doctor shook his head and crossed over to me "I am going to remove the mental blocks I put up when you were here before," he informed me. I still wanted to know why I had a connection with the ship, and what exactly that meant, but I did not argue with the Doctor. After all, I had been trying to get passed the botched mental blocks for years. I had been trying to remember what happened that day. I had been trying to figure out what was so important that my father left.

The Doctor placed a hand on either side of my face and closed his eyes. My father was standing by the console, laying a hand on it, looking away from us. All at once, the Doctor broke down the mental walls he had put into place. All the things about that day I could never quite remember, all the things I had tried so hard to remember, they all came back to me, all at once as the walls in my mind were torn down. I remembered it as if it had happened five minutes ago. The Doctor lowered his hands, and took a few steps back. I stared at him, eyes wide and watering. I couldn't say anything, couldn't form the words. I looked from the Doctor to my father, who was still looking away from me. It must have been at least a full minute before I managed to speak again. "You left us to go off... adventuring," more anger came out than I had meant.

"It was more complicated than that, Loki" he said, without even turning to face me. He just stared down at the console, petting it. I noticed that the singing in my head had changed. I still couldn't understand the words, in the strange language the Doctor had called Gallifreyan, but the tone was different. It was calmer, slower, like the ship was trying to soothe me. I ignored it and went over to my father, standing next to him I put my hand on his shoulder and turned him to face me.

"Then explain it" I demanded. I deserved to know, after all. Didn't I? Even if it was 'complicated'.

"When I told your mother what I was, she said she never wanted to see me again. She didn't want me around you or her."

"So you thought the best course of action would be to erase our memories and leave?" I interrupted, surprising even myself with the anger in my voice.

"I erased your memories, Loki, not Jack" the Doctor said. His voice was calm, seemingly unfazed, which only made me angrier, for some reason. I only glanced at him before looking back to my father, who was still facing me but looking at the ground.

"You always planned to leave us, didn't you? You never planned on telling us what you were. You were just going to leave with the Doctor in a few years," I remembered him telling the Doctor that.

"You remember it now. You remember how your mother reacted when I told you. She would have reacted the same way no matter when I told her. And you two would have figured it out when you were old and I looked the same. She already suspected something."

I didn't say anything. I only glared at my father who was still looking at the floor. I wasn't sure how long we stood there. The Doctor was leaning back against the railing that surrounded the console, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

When I did spoke again, I changed the subject. "What does having a psychic connection with the TARDIS mean?"

"Well, for one thing it means that she like you," the Doctor answered, "I don't know how you can have one as soon as you walked in, like this. The only people who have ever had it, out of everyone I've traveled with me are me and Jack, and with both of us it took at least a hundred years".

"Ok, I am immortal, my father is to, the reason he left was to go adventuring, and the bigger on the inside ship really does exist, and I have a psychic connection with it. If I didn't know better I would think I was dreaming." No way this was a dream, as I had though before. "This is to crazy to be a dream, no one could make this up. It has to be real."

The others both smiled, "definitely my grandson" the Doctor smiled proudly, my father nodded, the same proud smile on his face.

I crossed back over to the door, "Get this thing out of my house". I turned the doorknob but it did not open.

The singing in my head had changed again, the tone, it sounded almost like a protest. Though I could not understand the words, I knew the ship was telling me not to go.

"Let him go, dear" the Doctor said, so quietly I could barely hear him. The doors reluctantly opened and I went out, back into my apartment. They closed behind me, without me touching them, and it slowly began to disappear, with the noise that I had heard before, not just on the day my father left, but other days to. Once every couple of weeks or so, I would hear it. My mother thought I stopped hearing it long ago, but I hadn't, I just stoped saying anything about it. At first when I heard it, I always thought my father was going to come back and apoligize for leaving, and have a very good explaination why he had to go, even though he didn't want to. I kept hearing it, but I stopped hoping it. I stopped thinking my father was going to come home. Still, that noise, it seemed to become more frequent. Like it was haunting me, almost. Now I knew what it was, but there was still one thing I didn't know about it. Why had I heard it. The noise was the TARDIS landing, so had the TARIDS been landing near me all along? Why didn't my father come to me then? Or, had I been imagining it. No one else seemed to hear it, after all.

Well, none of that mattered. Now that I knew why they left, I wanted nothing to do with either of them. I was perfectly happy to live a normal life. Happy to, but I knew it wasn't going to happen. I had been told stories of what they did, and now that I knew for a fact it was all true, I knew nothing would go back to being normal again.

I had gotten no sleep that night. I lay in bed, trying to sleep, but I just couldn't. I couldn't stop thinking about what had happened that day. I had died, came back, met my father and grandfather, and remembered everything I had forgotten about when they left. I kept going over it in my mind.

_My parents were cooking dinner, I was playing video games. The phone rang, and my father answered it. In fact, he jumped up to answer it, as if he didn't want anyone else to. I could hear what he had said, but when he hung up he told my mother a friend was coming over for dinner. _

I noted how I remembered that so clearly and yet, I was sure I hadn't been paying attention to what was going on in the kitchen.

_Just a few minutes later, the doorbell rang. My father went to answer it, telling me to turn off the video games and help set the table, witch I did, leaving the television on. The man, who claimed to be my father's friend from when they went to school together in London, said his name was Doctor John Smith. He was dressed oddly, and in the same clothes he had been wearing when I saw him the night before. The same long black coat, fedora hat, green scarf, blue tennis shoes, and even the same black pants and white shirt. And of course, the same piercing green eyes and black rimmed glasses. We all sat down to eat, my mother was obviously suspicious that my father was different, but at the time she didn't know how. She asked the Doctor lots of questions about my father, like she was trying to figure out what exactly it was that was different about him. _

_"I've never met anyone from Jack's childhood. I swear sometimes it's like he never had one," my mother had said, eyeing my father suspiciously. _

_"I used to think he would never get out of his. I lost count of how many times I had to ward off angry boyfriends at school." _

_"That I can believe." _

_"You're just jealous because all the girls were interested in me and not you, Doc," my father interjected. _

_"River was interested enough in me. Enough to marry me." _

_"You're married to Jack's sister?" my mother asked. "Where is she now? And why didn't you come see us when she did?" _

_I glanced at the TV when I realized I had left it on, but what was on surprised me. "What a cool movie" I said, going over to the TV so I could watch it. The others looked over at it, and the Doctor and my father both stood up sharply. _

_"Of course," the Doctor said, sounding exasperated "I can never go anywhere, can I? I'm sorry, I have to go," he rushed out, grabbing his hat, witch my father had taken and hung on the rack by the door when he arrived, on the way out. _

_"Doctor," my father called just before the door closed, making the Doctor stop and turn around, but instead of saying anything else to him, he turned to my mother, who was trying to make sense of what was going on. _

_"What are those things? What's going on?" she asked, looking horrified at the aliens on the screen. _

_"I will explain later," my father said, "You and Loki need to come with us." _

_My mother stood and crossed over to me, putting her hands on my shoulders, "We are not going anywhere with you" she hissed. _

_"Katharine, it's not safe here," my father said urgently. My mother didn't budge. "We don't have time for this," he insisted. _

_My grandfather took a few steps forward, so that he was standing just in front of my father. "I am not really Jack's old friend from school," he began, speaking very quickly, so quickly I could barely keep up."I am his father, and River is not his sister, she is his mother. Those things," he motioned to the TV, "are called Daleks. They are aliens, and they are very dangerous. The only emotion they feel is hate. Hate for anyone who is not a Dalek, particularly me. If we," he pointed back and forth between himself and my father, "don't do something about this fast, then they may well destroy the whole planet. You need to come with us to my ship, you'll be safe there until we can stop the Daleks." _

_My mother didn't react, she was trying to process all of the information, I guessed. "Those things are real?" I asked, pointing to the TV, up until that point I couldn't figure out why everyone was making such a big deal about a movie. _

_"That's right, Loki," the Doctor sad, not looking away from my mother, "They are real and very dangerous. You two need to get to my ship. Now." _

_"Ship? Are you an alien too?" I asked. I remembered thinking that was the coolest thing I had ever heard. My grandfather was an alien. _

_"You remember the bedtime stories I used to tell you, don't you?" my father interjected, "About the alien who traveled all over the universe in his ancient time machine, saving planets and rescuing people." _

_"Those were real?" I asked, not looking away from my grandfather, in disbelief. _

_"They were real," my father confirmed, "and we need to get to the time machine now. It's safe there." _

_"Cool," I exclaimed, easily breaking away from my mother and going over to them. _

_"Let's go, then, we need to stop those Daleks. I swear, they will be the death of me. And then the death of me again." the Doctor said, rushing out the door, my father and I followed, though I wasn't quite sure what he had meant about them 'being the death of him again'. I heard a weak protest from my mother, who ended up following after us. _

**A/N I am not quite happy with this chapter... Let me know what you think.**


	3. Chapter 3

I did not see my father for almost a year after that night when the ship landed in my apartment. Still, I continued to here the noise. The noise I had heard ever since the day my father left. The noise I now recognized as the TARDIS landing somewhere nearby. While I never saw the ship, I knew it must be close. I wondered why. Why it kept landing so close, close enough for me to hear it, and yet never in sight. I wondered if it really was just my imagination all along. I tried not to think about it to much. I mean, it couldn't be good for you. Right? Dwelling on one thing that I wasn't even sure was real. I tried to avoid thinking about it, but that became harder and harder when the noise became more frequent.

Though I did not know the exact date, I knew they must have landed in my living room about a year ago. I was shelving books at work when I heard the noise again. It sounded close this time, I noted, but I tried to shake thoughts of it out of my head, not even looking away from my work until I heard people saying things like "How are they doing that?" and "What is that thing?"

This made me look toward the noise, and sure enough, with a small crowd of amazed patrons surrounding it, the TARDIS was landing right in the middle of The Tea and Tome. I pushed my way passed the people so I was standing in front of my grandfathers ship. My father poked his head out and looked around. He made eye contact with me, then said over his shoulder, "looks like she did it again, Doc".

He then stepped out of the ship, getting out of the Doctor's way so he could see for himself. I couldn't help but be a bit indignant when my father did not say anything to me. And How the Doctor could have missed me at first. I had no idea, since I was now standing apart from the crowd, but some how he managed it. He looked around at the crowd and... was he sniffing the air? "Well I don't... oh," he noticed me. About time. "Hello, Loki," without waiting for me to respond, he turned to my father, "You know, Jack, I don't think she is going to let us go," he decided. My father just nodded in agreement.

"Why are you here?" I asked them, It came out sharper than I had intended it to.

"See, we've been trying to leave, like you asked us to," the Doctor explained, "but the TARDIS isn't having it. She keeps landing around you, no matter what we try." So that was why I was always hearing the noise. It was not just in my head, as I had thought.

"Well tell it I am not coming," admittedly, I did want to come, but I would not let that on. I wanted to see the universe and all that, but I had not forgiven them for leaving me and my mother to go adventuring. Yes, they were saving lives, by they had plenty of time for that. My father was immortal, and his father was over a thousand years old, from what I remembered. Surely my father could have spared a few more years before going off and adventuring.

"You think we didn't try that, Loki?" my father asked, "We've told her over and over again, but she won't listen. She's stubborn like that."

"It's a ship," this time, I meant the sharpness in my voice.

"You have a connection with her," the Doctor interjected before my father could answer, "You know that she is more than just a ship. You know that she is perfectly capable of wanting you to come with us. She has never been this persistant about anything. She knows something. She's not telling what, but I really think it would be a good idea for you to come with us."

My father said something in a language I did not understand, it sounded like the language I had heard the ship singing in my head when I was there last. Gallifreyan, I think they called it. Though I didn't understand what he had said, the looks they gave the people around me made me accutely aware of their presence, which I had temporarilly forgotten.

"Let's talk about this inside," my father then suggestted.

"I am not going anywhere with you," I insisted warily, though I did want to get away from the crowd. I would find a way to explain what was happening to them later, right now I wanted to talk elsewhere. My father just shook his head and motioned inside. I reluctantly went in, greeted by the happy humming of the ship, as well as the singing in my head.

None of us said anything as we first entered. My body seemed to act of it's own accord, as I went to the console and lay a hand on it. "Why do you want me to come with you?" my voice was barely above a whisper. Was I really speaking to a ship? Maybe I was mad. The singing in my head changed, it was lower, darker. Though it was still in Gallifreyan, I knew the ship had answered me, and this did not surprise me at all. I knew it should have, but, part of me had known it would answer, I think.

I did not speak again, to the ship or to the others, who stood silently near the door, for what must have been a few minutes. I did want to travel with them, and, if nothing else, figure out why I had a connection with the ship. It really did seem like they would not go away untill I went with them. I could travel with them, just for a while, then, hopefully, the ship would let them leave and I could go back to normal.

Although, admittedly, I was starting to doubt if I wanted to go back to normal.

I would cross that brigde when I got there. For now, I turned to the others, and, after another short moment, simply said, "alright."


	4. Chapter 4

"Alright, I'll go with you. But," I continued before either of them could say anything, "I have a requ…" I paused briefly, 'request ' didn't seem right for some reason. "Condition," I amended. My father and the Doctor glanced at each other briefly before looking back at me.

"What it is, Son?" For some reason, I felt…uneasy when my father called me that. I assumed it was because of his long absence. He was gone for so long and now, it was as if he was acting like nothing happened. Still, I shook it off and continued.

"I want to learn Gallifreyan," I wanted to understand the singing. I wanted to understand what the ship was saying to me, I was now sure, after all, that it was indeed the ship trying to communicate with me. This had to be real. It was to crazy to be some kind of… dream or… hallucination or something. I was snapped out of my thoughts by my grandfather answering me.

"It is not exactly the easiest language to learn, " he warned.

"I want to learn it," I repeated stubbornly.

"Alright, I'll teach you" the Doctor consented, "After all, I taught Jack," he clapped my father's shoulder as he started toward the console. I only nodded, turning to fully face them, letting my hand fall from the console to my side. For the first time since I had stepped into the ship nearly a year ago, I felt… excited to travel with them. I had, after all, wanted to explore with them since I found out that I really wasn't making it up in my head. I had never admitted it to myself, but I really did.

I moved out of the way while the two of them flew. I leaned back against the railing as I watched them, transfixed. I vaguely wondered how long they had been traveling in this ship. They knew the controls so well, they flew it so easily, deftly pulling levers with one hand while they flipped switches with the other. By the look of it, the ship was meant to be flown by at least two more people, but they handled it well by themselves, knowing exactly what needed to be done. Despite their obvious skill, the ride was by no means smooth. In fact, I had to grab on to the rail behind me to stop from falling over. I briefly wondered how they were able to stand, I assumed because they were accustomed to the ship jerking about and shaking as it flew.

Finally, I was almost pulled to the ground when the ship jolted. "Here we are," the Doctor announced pleasantly, well, I could have gathered that.

"Where is here?"

"I have no idea," he answered, obviously excited as he proceeded to the door.

"Randomizer button," my father explained as he passed me on his way out, "entered random coordinates. My idea."

"Was not," the Doctor said over his shoulder, reminding me of a child.

"Whatever you want to think, Doc" my father grinned as he stepped out after him, me trailing behind them. We had landed in the middle of a meadow, a small town was in sight in front of us, and a mountain range was visable off to one side.

I watched as the Doctor scanned the air with that….thing, and sniffed around for a moment, grunting. "Tara," he reasoned, "but something is wrong."

"What makes you say that?" Nothing looked odd to me, although, it occurred to me that I had no idea what 'odd' was on this planet. It looked like Earth to me. I wasn't sure I was entirely convinced this was another planet.

"What, you don't smell that?" The Doctor sounded as if it was obvious.

"Not all of us have your Time Lord sense of smell," my father pointed out.

"Something's burning. No, " he amended quickly, "no smoke aroun. Something's been burnt, a lot of somethings, fairly recently" without another word, or waiting for us to respond, he proceeded toward the town.

"I smell it," my father said as we approached. Shortly after, I did to, the smell of burning wood was now apparent.

"See, If you two would just smell things, everything would be so much easier," the Doctor said, adjusting his hat which the wind had made crooked.

None of us said anything until we approached the town. The first thing I noticed was that I did not see any people around, and that the smell was almost over powering. Even though not one of the wooden buildings looked burned from the outside, I could see through the glassless windows that the insides were completely scorched .

"So, where is everyone," the Doctor mumbled, speaking the question I had on my mind.

He scanned around with that thing, again. What was that thing, anyway? I had no time to ask, before my grandfather lead us into a shop , sniffing around as he walked. He stopped sniffing when he opened to door, in fact, he stopped everything, slowly taking a few steps inward I supposed he had not noticed that it was burnt through the windows.

"What happened here?" my father asked.

"Not sure," the Doctor answered under his breath, crouching in front of a pile of burnt wood. He picked up a splintered board and examined it. " It's been at least two or three days." He decided, and stood, tossing the wood aside, and inspecting the rest of the building. "No one seems to have been hurt," he reasoned, then seemed to catch sight of something, something that I didn't see, that made him realize something. "Oh. Well, that is definitely very not good," he said to himself.

"What is?" I asked, but he did not answer.

Instead he turned to the door, only turning briefly to say "Stay," sternly to my father and I, before leaving.

After he left, my father moved toward the door, "he said to stay here, " I pointed out. Even before my father turned to face me, I could tell he was grinning.

"He ought to know better by now. I won't be left behind." I couldn't help but grin. "So, you coming or not, Feyren?" I must have looked confused at the last word, which I had assumed was Gallifreyan, because he elaborated. "That means Son. Are you coming?" he repeated. I only nodded before following him. I still felt uneasy when he called me that, in any language.

We followed the Doctor into the building next door, which appeared to be someone's house. The Doctor did not even look at us as we entered shortly behind him. "I should know better then to tell you to stay, Jack. When have you ever listened to me?" He sighed, "And you to, Loki. Like father like son, I suppose."

This house was burnt on the interior as well, and no one appeared to be around, I noticed. "What happened here?" I asked, looking around at the ash covered remains.

"Well," the Doctor reasoned as he looked around, but catching sight of something seemed to cut him off. He took a few steps foreward and knelt, I went to his side and saw it. Some kind of… were those scales?

"Drimos." He concluded.

"Drimos?" My father seemed to know what they were, and he was not happy about it.

"What are they?" I asked, completely lost.

"They are a warring race, nearly always in one kind of war or another. The native race to this planet, they never have instigated any war. The Drimos must have attacked them."

"So they slaughtered everyone." My father growled, I saw his hand go to the pistol at his side, which I hadn't noticed before, and the Doctor gave him a disapproving look.

"I don't think so. I haven't seen any one, not even any remains," the Doctor looked around, gesturing encompassingly.

"So where are they? Will they still be here?"

"I don't know," the Doctor muttered, he seemed to be sniffing the air again, trying to smell if there was anyone else around. "If the Drimos are still here, they will be some where near those mountain we saw where we landed. Their home planet is more mountainous than Tara, they often live in stone buildings they build on top of mountians.

"Let's go, then," my father said, drawing his gun.

"Jack," the Doctor scolded, my father didn't say anything, instead walked out, I followed, and I heard the Doctor sigh before he followed behind us.


End file.
